Funds to help needy families pay electric bills running low
Aid agencies forced to turn away elderly, disabled, unemployed
September 1, 2007
RICHARD ABSHIRE / The Dallas Morning News

Every year, hot weather seems to outlast the money agencies set aside to help families in need pay their electric bills. "We're turning down 25 to 30 people a day," said Susan Boyd, director of Friendship House in Garland. "We get 25 calls a day, and we can only help about 25 a month."
But it's not as bad as last year and the year before. "The mild summer was a blessing," Ms. Boyd said.

In the first 45 minutes after Friendship House opened Friday morning, volunteers took seven calls from people looking for help with their utility bills. The callers are seniors, people with disabilities, parents of special-needs children, and people who are unemployed or underemployed. But there's only so much Friendship House can do. "We don't have any money," Ms. Boyd said.

The city of Garland gave $42,500 from Garland Power & Light to Friendship House this year and made larger grants to other agencies. After that money is gone, there won't be any more for utility assistance until the city's new budget takes effect in October. "It's not that we don't have a lot of money, it's just that so many people have needs," Ms. Boyd said.

Friday morning, a mother with two children at home sat in Ms. Boyd's office. The woman, a former caregiver who hasn't been able to work because of back and knee trouble, would be one of the last this year to get help – the maximum of $200 that will go with more than $124 of her own money to catch her up on her bill. It's the third time in three years that she's had to turn to Friendship House for help.

Ms. Boyd was summoned from the session to take a call from a senior looking for help. She is 80 and lives on $1,000 a month, and the utility bill for her one-bedroom apartment was $270. It was more than she could afford, but Ms. Boyd had to tell her there was no money available. There are rules about how often a person can be helped and how bad the need must be. "First of all, they have to qualify, so we have to screen them," Ms. Boyd said. "Secondly, it's first come, first served. I kind of lean toward the elderly and disabled, because it sometimes comes down to we have to make choices. So we have to look at the need and see whose need is greatest and what the possibilities are for that person as far as their accessing other funds."

It's the same financial difficulties with other agencies that provide utility aid – usually in conjunction with food and rent support – such as the Urban League, the Salvation Army and Good Samaritans of Garland. Kathy West, executive director of Good Samaritans of Garland, said the $56,000 she got from the city to help Garland Power & Light customers ran out in June.

TXU gives the agency $35,000 a year in quarterly installments for use in Garland, and some of that money is still available. But it's for TXU customers, and only about 15 percent of Garland residents use TXU. Across Dallas County this year, TXU has distributed $1.3 million to 17 social service organizations to help people with utility bills, spokeswoman Sophia Stoller said. Since the utility began its Energy Aid program in 1983, it has donated more than $40 million to help about 300,000 families across Texas, she said.

"It's a program to help people with temporary problems," Ms. Stoller said, "because it's difficult sometimes to pay bills when someone loses a job or they're going through a divorce." GP&L offers its customers the option of rounding up their payments and uses those extra funds and late fees to help agencies such as Friendship House and Good Samaritans.

Good Samaritans volunteers see people with the same needs as those at Friendship House – the old, the sick and the struggling. Some are unemployed, while others work but don't earn enough to pay for housing, food, transportation, health care and utilities. "People aren't getting paid enough, and they don't have benefits," Ms. West said. "Poor people are suffering."

Jami Russell of Mesquite Social Services said her agency was in pretty good shape this year, thanks largely to the cool, wet start of the summer. But demand ramped up with the temperatures in August. Her organization got about $125,000 this year – $45,000 from TXU's Energy Aid program and the rest from United Way and other sources. "We help about 10,000 people each year," Ms. Russell said. "That's not just utilities. That includes rent and food."

At Rockwall County Helping Hands, business manager Cary Smith said money is tight – most of the $104,000 budgeted for emergency utility assistance has been spent – and it will stay that way until October. "It's going to be a stretch for us," Mr. Smith said. For anybody who is inclined to help, he noted that Helping Hands is in the middle of a fundraising campaign.

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